In the consumer electronics and computer industries, transmission of audio signals from a host player to remote device speakers has generally been accomplished over an analog wired interface comprising speaker wires. With the advent of digital audio content, the desire to maintain the pristine digital audio signal as far as possible along the audio signal chain has motivated designers to pursue digital interfaces to replace unsightly, signal-loss-prone analog speaker wires.
The High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) is an all-digital audio/video interface capable of transmitting uncompressed streams. HDMI is compatible with High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) Digital Rights Management technology. HDMI provides an interface between any compatible digital audio/video source, such as a set-top box, a DVD player, a PC, a video game console, or an audio video (AV) receiver and a compatible digital audio and/or video monitor, such as a digital television (DTV).
FIG. 1A shows an example of a conventional prior art audio video system that includes a source—an HDMI AV receiver with a centralized amplifier—connected via an HDMI cable to HDMI DVD player and also connected via an HDMI cable to a display (HDMI TV). The HDMI AV receiver is also connected via analog speaker wires to a set of 6 speakers, each connected point-to-point from the HDMI AV receiver. Speakers in FIG. 1A are identified as follows: Front Left (FL), Front Right (FR), Center (C), Surround Left (SL), Surround Right (SR), and Low Frequency Effect (LFE), also commonly referred to as a “subwoofer.”
FIG. 1B illustrates another prior art system that includes a HDMI DVD player integrated with a AV RX and a centralized amplifier that forms a source—i.e., a home theatre in a box (HTiB)—connected via an HDMI cable to a display (HDMI TV). A HTiB refers to an integrated home entertainment package that typically includes a DVD player, surround sound capability, a radio tuner in a box. The HTiB is also connected via analog speaker wires to a set of 6 speakers, each connected point-to-point from the HTiB.
FIGS. 2A and 2B illustrate additional prior art systems similar to FIGS. 1A and 1B, respectively, except that speakers SR and SL are now wireless in FIGS. 2A and 2B. Also, each of these speakers includes a distributed amplifier in addition to the centralized amplifier located in the source.
These prior art conventional systems contain components that can maintain pristine digital audio and video from source to display through HDMI interconnects. By contrast, the interconnects from the source to most of the speakers is still analog via conventional speaker wires. For prior art systems containing 6 individual speakers, and other, more advanced systems which support up to 8 speakers or more, the speaker wire interconnections not only suffer from analog signal loss, but the speaker wire interconnections can be an eyesore or a wire-hiding challenge. Also, a surround-sound system with a large number of speakers and associated wiring causes further complications for installation and ease of modification.